


when we could be diving for pearls

by IrisParry



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisParry/pseuds/IrisParry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://got-exchange.livejournal.com/">got_exchange</a> prompt: "Noir AU: Detective Stannis investigates the death of his brother with the help of ex-con Davos and mysterious psychic Melisandre." </p><p><i>He could </i>see<i> the threads of the lies, the plots, tangled and twisted; could almost make out the points of crossover, matching ends, the right strands to pull to unravel the whole mess, just slipping from his fingertips... all so close.</i></p><p>  <i>Stannis passed a hand over his face, pressed middle finger and thumb to his temples. He was tired, the boy had been right about that. He'd woken in a sweat most every night since he'd moved out of the old house in Dragonstone, since he'd handed in his badge and gun, and sometimes in the dark it felt like he couldn't catch his breath, keep his footing, like the ground was falling away under him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	when we could be diving for pearls

**Author's Note:**

> I deviated from the prompt a little - Jon/Stannis was mentioned in the signup so I wrote something a little more ship/character-focussed than a traditional case fic. Title from the Elvis Costello song _Shipbuilding (with all the will in the world / diving for dear life / when we could be diving for pearls)._
> 
> Update 05/01/14: A couple of drabbles in this 'verse posted [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1120734)

Anybody who didn't know him would have thought Stannis Baratheon was still in mourning. Neither his suit nor his scowl had needed dusting down for the funeral, six months ago, after Robert Baratheon blew a hole in his own gut, with his own gun, on his own game reserve out to the west of the city. Stannis' suit and look were still black as he slumped low in the old Chrysler, hat on the dashboard, eyes fixed on the gate down the street.

Robert had died as he had lived: loud, messy and outrageous. Even the coffin in which he slumbered, thick beige greasepaint not quite erasing the broken purple veins of his nose and cheeks, was vulgar, all gold paint and prancing stags. Robert had commissioned it himself a few years back. He hadn't borne the gaudy box's dimensions in mind when sitting down to supper since that morbid shopping trip, meaning costly adjustments needed to be made after the accident - the _incident_. That was what Stannis' old partner Cressen had called it, diplomatic as ever, when he was still keeping his eyes open for him, running the odd licence plate or address on the quiet. Now the old man was staring out of the window in a retirement home, out of the way, a loose end tied up for someone, and Stannis was staring at the gate.

The wake had been a farce, of course: a couple hundred people who couldn't stand each other crammed into the White Raven, the restaurant Robert had opened on Aegon's Hill with Ned Stark. Redwynes, Tyrells, Lannisters, and all the rest who ought to have been rotting in jail after the almost-scandal of Storm's End bank, the should've-been scandal, the whitewash, smiling until their faces ached and drinking until their manners wore thin. The hunting trophies which had clearly been Robert's contribution to the decor looked on with sad, vaguely embarrassed eyes, and tried not to frighten the children. _And what children!_ Stannis thought sourly. Shining and golden where Robert had been rough and dark. _Lannister through and through._

Cersei made as dutiful a mourner as she did a Baratheon, seated her brothers-in-law a dozen tables away from where she laughed and posed and schmoozed passing guests. Her dress had been a deep burgundy, matching the wine she lifted to her lips long and often. Stark had been sombre in charcoal grey, but when wasn't he? He'd stepped into Jon Arryn's shoes, and they seemed to pinch. Stannis had glowered in black, absorbed the whispers and the sneaked glances, the gossip. He had never been able to serve up feelings in the neat little parcels of public ritual, certainly wasn't about to start then. He'd grieved for Robert long before anyone else had thought to.

Stannis sat and watched the gate of the Lannister house, while the sun sank and the city lit up.

 

_Shrugging into a dark overcoat, Stannis paused at the door to the public saloon bar and peered through the glass. It was crammed with overspill from the wake, and a fair few had made the trip from the north end of town. Ill-fitting navy-blue suits dotted the smoky room, pressed into service for funerals, weddings and court appearances alike, though one figure stood out in worn but well-cut sable, face as dour as the day demanded. Stannis let his eyes glaze over and move on when the boy looked up._

_"Detecti- ah,_ Mr _Baratheon." The voice behind him was low and rich; a honeyed warmth spread to fill the corners of the drawled words, and the exotic tang was hard to place. Someone had worked hard on it. It would have got Stannis' hackles up even without the little kick in the teeth for an opener._

_"Don't purr at me. I'm not a tourist."_

_The woman honest-to-gods threw back her head when she laughed, as if she didn't draw enough attention already. Though she'd had the decency to put away her showy red silks her neckline was low for a Westeros winter. Her skin glowed pale and her hair blazed bright, stark against the fabric. Around the Raven, eyes that had been trying not to register Stannis Baratheon all night watched him enviously as the woman stepped in closer._

_"I've come a long way from that goddamned pier, Stannis," she hissed into his ear, a few smooth edges suddenly sharper. "Remember it, if you want my help."_

_She'd been Melony Asshai when he first knew her, a crystal-gazer and tarot reader charging twenty dollars per tall, dark stranger in a little striped tent at pitch seven on the boardwalk. She'd appreciated the extra she could make giving Stannis the nod when the port boys were moving something big. The useful stuff had dried up when she swapped the King's Landing waterfront for the sitting rooms of neurotic housewives and socialites full-time. Now she was_ Melisandre, _he was_ Mister, _and as far as he could tell their business was concluded._

_"I don't recall asking for your help," he said. In the edge of his vision a black jacket clapped the shoulder of blues, moving in a round of farewells. "But I'll be sure to call if I need to know what colour Lollys Stokeworth's aura is."_

_His fingers were closing on the door handle when she said, "There's a boy I keep seeing."_

_"I'd say he should make an honest woman of you but it's far too late," he replied, but she knew she had his attention, was still enough of an amateur to show it in the little quirk of her mouth when he looked back._

_"Cute. I see him when I read the flames. No matter who I'm divining for, you and he keep interfering." Stannis' jaw shifted. Melisandre's eyes drifted as she remembered. "He's walking... you're following at a distance... then the ground falls away beneath you... "_

_Stannis waited, expressionless._

_"He's pale, blond..."_

_Stannis cut her off with a grunt that might have passed for laughter in another man. "Saw it in the flames, Melo- ah, Melisandre?" he mock-stuttered. It was a cheap shot, but he was in the mood for them. "Saw it in the bottom of a bottle, more like."_

_She stepped back and shook her hair behind her shoulders, giving him a look like a red-hot poker. "I'm not in the habit of giving free consultations, Stannis. And you look to be running low on friends these days."_

_"I don't have time for parlour tricks. Good evening."_

_She'd caught him off-guard and he'd thought of the boy, just for a moment, shirtless and wreathed in smoke in the shadows before dawn. The low sill of the window in his room was deep enough that he could sit, back bare against the wood on one side, knees bent to brace his feet against the other, a cigarette dangling loosely from his fingers._

_As he pushed his way into the din of the saloon bar, where cold air still lingered from the swing of the main door, he could hear the brisk, angry clack of her heels on the floorboards._

 

Stannis was gone when Jon woke up. It was a cold morning in late October, and when he cracked the blind halfway the pale yellowish light made the room look washed out, faded, like an old photograph.

The smell of burning bacon drifted up from the kitchen, meaning it was later than he'd thought. Jon splashed water over his face at the sink, avoided his own eyes in the streaked mirror above the washstand. The bruises and scratches stared him in the face regardless. They'd had the argument so many times they'd gotten tired of saying the words, skipped more and more of the part where they paced and yelled and pretended like they weren't going to go to bed, got there still furious instead.

Jon dressed, shirt and waistcoat and loose wool trousers dark as his mood, and threw himself into work. He lent Hobb a hand with the last few breakfasts, went through the accounts with Sam; he did the rounds of the boarding house collecting rent and excuses in roughly equal amounts, strode down the long creaking corridors like he was confident in his authority. Like his muscles didn't burn, like he didn't ache.

Edd had the night off so at nine o'clock Jon was behind the Black Castle's bar, keeping a handful of the usual crowd topped up with cheap whiskey while Mormont's damned bird called him _boy_ from its big iron cage at the end of the counter. A few of Mance's boys lounged in the tatty wing-back chairs next to the fireplace. Bowen Marsh shifted in his seat as if they were spying on his poker hand whenever they passed by him on the way to the bathroom, but the days when there'd have been a fistfight over it were more or less done. Things were rough up at Storrold's Point and people moving south for a quieter time of it had been stepping on toes and turf, not always intentionally. Working out a deal with Mance - and getting his own people to stick to it - had been Jon's first real test since Mormont died, but he was too cautious to chalk it up as success just yet.

Heads turned when Davos Seaworth walked in. A stormcloud darkened the left side of his face, purple-black and ominous. Jon opened a bottle of the local stout, dark and yeasty and so thick you almost had to chew, stood it on the scarred wood and waved away the wallet Davos pulled out of the pocket of his brown leather jacket. Davos nodded his thanks and sat down on a tall stool. He drank hungrily but gingerly. His face must've felt as bad as it looked.

"Has Stannis been in?" Davos asked eventually, lightly, as if Stannis was just a regular who might've stopped by for a Tom Collins. He picked at the label on the bottle with his thumbnail.

"Haven't seen him today," Jon replied, thinking three in the morning didn't really count.

Davos nodded, and his brow creased as he kept working on the label. "We were meant to meet this afternoon. He didn't show up."

"He should be easy enough to find, parked outside Paxter Redwyne's place doing that thing with his teeth." Jon had thought he'd stowed the anger but there it was, still just below the surface.

Davos smiled thinly. "He had me on Redwyne for a month. The man's either gotten very clean or very careful."

Jon cut to the chase. "So who's still dirty? Or who's pissed off enough at Stannis to do that to your face?"

"Manderley. Couple of his guys, anyway. " Weariness had crept into Davos' voice, and it was as like him as missing a meet was like Stannis.

Jon hadn't seen that name coming. Manderley was a lower-league ass-kisser, no real muscle, and if Stannis was fitting him into the grand conspiracy... Jon sighed and scrubbed a hand back through his hair. He picked a bottle off the side, poured a stream of Four Roses into a glass until a little after it looked like too much. _Damn the man._

 

_Stannis didn't acknowledge anyone else fool enough to hail him as he crossed the saloon. Outside it wasn't freezing yet, but it was was that kind of cold that made the paving stones look chalky and dry, misted his breath as he hurried to his car._

_There was a dull ache behind his eyes. Robert's parties were of no more interest when he was dead than when he was alive; this one had been a particular trial, though, watching the whole damned lot of them toasting to their success in pissing on the law. But corpses weren't as easily brushed aside as crooked paper trails. Stannis would have smiled grimly, but he was not the kind of man to sit grinning inanely at his private thoughts. Cersei hadn't put Robert and Arryn in the ground on her own, he was sure of it. She hadn't been the only one who stood to benefit._

_He'd had enough of games and artifice for one night so before he could think better of it he leaned over and wound down the passenger window, blaming it on Melony and her boy. "Are you getting in or not?" he asked, raising his voice just enough to carry across the sidewalk._

_A moment passed. A breath of wind sent a rush of dirt and dead leaves skittering along the ground. Then the little orange glow of a cigarette tip hit the ground and went out, and a shadow peeled away from the mouth of the alley behind the Raven._

_"I'm waiting for a cab."_

_"Sure. And I'm waiting to give the merry widow a ride home."_

_The lights of Aegon's Hill were a fading constellation in the rear view mirror before the boy spoke again._

_"I didn't see Davos tonight."_

_"He and Robert weren't the best of friends."_

_"Nor were you and Robert." Stannis' mouth twitched. Jon was pushing it already. The Raven had been just as much of a slap in the face to him tonight, he supposed._

_Jon twisted in his seat. "Look, I know you've had Davos tailing Lancel Lannister," he began._

_Stannis' fingers tightened on the wheel. "He's in this up to his neck. Cersei's sheets too, it looks like."_

_"Is this what you quit the force to do?" Jon asked. He was facing Stannis now, knees drawn up so he could turn his body sideways. "Snoop through keyholes and hotel windows like those vultures who sell skin to Baelish's gossip rags?" Stannis could feel his look, didn't take his eyes off the road in case he caught both barrels of the pity in it._

_"Do I look as if I'm enjoying myself? This is about justice."_

_Jon said his next words slowly and precisely. "You're not a cop anymore."_

_Stannis gritted his teeth, swung the wheel angrily, taking a sharp left off the King's Road by the Hearth hotel. "Arryn and Robert are dead - "_

_"And Othor is missing," Jon interrupted. "Two weeks now, and you've done nothing. I sent his mother to you because the police in King's Landing don't care what happens to guys like him, guys from around here. And because I thought you wanted the work."_

_Stannis pulled into the lot behind the Black Castle too fast, rattling the rusting chickenwire of the fence and the open gate. Mormont's little clapboard empire - Snow's now - stretched along most of the block, the bar and the kitchen and a bunch of rooms, thirty dollars a week for a thin mattress, a heart-attack breakfast and a toilet shared with a dozen other men. Though it was getting on for midnight there were lights at a few of the windows. The sound of scratchy blues drifted from the back door of the Castle, propped open to the stretch of weeds and buckled asphalt._

_He remembered the case Jon had sent his way, not the first disappearance in the northern suburb these past few months. He'd thought it likely Othor was just taking a little holiday from life in some Hardhome shooting gallery, but Davos had been troubled after he'd seen the mother, and there was talk about the crew running things up there... Something different about them, the stuff they sold. He hadn't forgotten, exactly, but he'd been distracted. Arryn and Robert. The tip of the iceberg. "Once I get through with this business - "_

_Jon brought his palm down hard on the dashboard. "Damn it, Stannis, how can you carry on like somehow everyone's going to get what they deserve?"_

_Stannis braked sharply at the back of the lot, making Jon's feet slip back down off the seat, killed the engine._

_They sat for a moment in the jagged patches of light and shadow, in a silence pulled dangerously taut. Jon's chest rose and fell like he'd run the last block._

_"What would you have me do?" Stannis' question was curled in on itself, not looking for an answer._

_"There's no place for you there now," Jon said quietly. "Stop scratching at the gate."_

_It was bad college poetry but it caught Stannis like a left hook. He opened his mouth to scoff at the idea but couldn't seem to bring the words past the hot, hard knot in his chest._

_"I know what it's like," Jon started, slower, and there was something like warmth in it, like the boy was going to try to comfort him, pat his hand like those hypocrites had done to poor bereaved Cersei all night. Stannis didn't think he could take that, not from Jon._

_"Spare me," he snapped. "You spat out Stark's silver spoon." It wasn't fair, wasn't more than half true, but Stannis stopped halfway to regretting it when Jon barked out a laugh, harsh and mirthless._

_"If I chose this, then so did you," Jon said, and so he didn't have to hit him Stannis grabbed a fistful of his hair, pulled him over to kiss him full on the mouth. The boy didn't even seem surprised anymore._

 

Jon pulled his stool in and leaned on the bar while he sipped. "There isn't a case there, Davos," he said.

"Stannis knows what he's doing," Davos insisted loyally, but Jon noted the careful pause before he spoke. "He was a cop a long time, and he was a good one."

Jon cocked an eyebrow, couldn't resist. "He caught you, after all."

Davos laughed, genuine pleasure on his face, and Jon wasn't sure who the man was proud of, himself or Stannis. Davos took a swig of stout and waved a hand, said "If he thinks there's something there - "

"He _thinks_ this is how he gets back at everyone for Storm's End," Jon said. "How he shows them all he was right."

"He _was_ right."

"Since when did that matter? This town respects order, not law. Cops and politicians can take all the kickbacks they want as long as bread's cheap and the trash gets collected and the Targaryen crew aren't burning people in the street anymore. Nobody wants to know."

"This is different. People are dead."

" _Dead_ ," the old raven screamed, and beat its scruffy wings. " _Dead_!" It had a penchant for the dramatic when it came to eavesdropping. The men by the fireplace hooted, pulled wide-eyed mock-fearful faces and pointed their fingers at each other, two stuck out straight like the barrel of a gun.

"Jon Arryn had a heart attack. Robert Baratheon was a drunk," Jon said, lowering his voice and glaring at the raven. "Stannis has to let it _go_."

Davos shook his head sadly, mouth twisting. "If you think he can do that, you don't know him."

Jon's lips pressed into a thin, tight line. "You encourage him," he said, sounding petty even to his own ears. "If you were to say something - "

"I've tried," Davos cut in, voice still mild and measured. "He listens, sometimes, or at least he used to. I thought he was easing off with Arryn, starting to accept things, but since Robert, he's - " Davos bit back the end of the sentence, a look crossing his face like he couldn't believe what he'd been thinking. He took a gulp of his drink, studied the grain of the wood on the counter.

"Losing it?" Jon supplied. "You might as well say it, everyone else is. Everyone who still gives a damn, anyway." _And all of us are probably sitting at this bar._

Jon sat back to strike a match, lit a cigarette. Davos declined when he proffered the pack. "Did you know he went to Melony's place? Got his palm read or whatever?"

The smoke caught in Jon's throat and he pressed a fist to his mouth, spluttered, "He did _what_?"

 

_The boy was asleep when Stannis left, when he stole away like a housebreaker in the half-light, no time for ... indolence. Stannis let himself through the door connecting the bar with the main boarding house, let the lock click behind him. His room was on the third floor, and every creak of every step seemed loud and accusing, announcing him and his business to the silent building._

_When all this was done with he'd put his mind to getting a real office, but for now he didn't need much more than somewhere to hang his clothes. For now he couldn't let his focus slip. He slung his overcoat onto the bed, changed out of the suit he'd worn to the funeral. It smelled of smoke, and lies, and he couldn't catch sight of the cufflinks without seeing them on Jon's nightstand. Heading back out in fresh black, he saw the white oblong just behind the door, grubby where he must have stepped on it on his way in._

_Davos Seaworth handled pen and paper like chisel and rock, had learned to carve slowly and precisely during all the free time gifted to him by King's Landing District Court. The man was his parole officer's pride and joy._

_L.L WAS THERE, BUT NOT CLOSE WHEN SHOT FIRED. CHECKING STEEL STREET ADDRESS. SPEAK TOMORROW.  
D.S_

_Davos had underlined "WAS" so heavily he'd poked a little hole in the page, as if desperate to accentuate the positive sentiment. He wondered when Davos had started patronising him. Robert's cooks, drivers, cleaners, shoe-shiners and whatever the hell other kind of servants he'd kept had toasted his memory in less salubrious surroundings than the Raven. Specialising in the less salubrious, Davos had spent the evening loosening their tongues and charging it to Stannis on expenses._

_Lancel Lannister was Cersei's cousin, a sulky kid who'd worked for both Arryn and Robert, some 'personal assistant' job made up to keep him looking busy when he didn't get into any colleges. Davos had paused uncomfortably when Stannis assigned him to sniff around, before delicately suggesting that it didn't necessarily take sinister Lannister plotting to get Robert Baratheon too drunk to handle a firearm; but Stannis did not believe in coincidence when it came to the Lannisters. They had too much to gain. Too much they should have damned well lost, them and the rest of that nest of vipers... Stannis ground his teeth, folding the note and slipping it into a coat pocket. Soon enough. Lancel had been there on the reserve that day. Unusual for a glorified secretary, surely... surely..._

_He could_ see _the threads of the lies, the plots, tangled and twisted; could almost make out the points of crossover, the matching ends, the right strands to pull to unravel the whole mess, just slipping from his fingertips... all so close._

_Stannis passed a hand over his face, pressed middle finger and thumb to his temples. He was tired, the boy had been right about that. He'd woken in a sweat most every night in the months since he'd moved out of the old house in Dragonstone, since he'd handed in his badge and gun, and sometimes in the dark it felt like he couldn't catch his breath, keep his footing, like the ground was falling away under him._

_Something pricked at his memory._ He's walking... you're following at a distance... _Then he remembered a sullen boy in his early twenties, sitting behind a desk in Arryn's old office with an expression said he and his expensive suit had better places to be, too much Brylcreem in that damned Lannister-gold hair._

_Stannis cursed himself most of the drive to King's Landing, cursed the one boy for pushing out the other. It was beyond foolish, it was self-indulgence, greed, and now he'd wasted time... He didn't know how she knew or why she'd told him, but Melisandre had warned him off Lancel Lannister, he saw that now. Even dressed up in her Halloween spiel it was clearer than anything he and Davos had turned up._

_The windows of the storefront were covered by heavy red velvet drapes on a brass rail, and even standing outside he could smell the smoke, heavy with spice.. He'd trusted her once, after all, a lifetime ago, and she hadn't put him wrong._

_Gold letters on the door read,_ Light in darkness. _It looked pretty dark from where Stannis was standing, so he opened the door and went in._

 

Jon stared at the dying fire, listened to it crackle and hiss. It was cold now in the empty bar room. The dull warmth of the whiskey sat heavy in his belly. Davos wasn't long gone, nerves jangling and a couple more stouts the worse for wear than usual: apparently mild-mannered Marya was going to pitch a fit when he went home with the black eye, already wanted him to quit working for Stannis. Who knew what conclusions his parole officer would jump to when he saw it. 

Riling up the Manderleys made no sense, but still more than Melony's casting the bones, or whatever it was she did to give her time to make shit up. Three times he'd gone to her place that Davos knew of, and since Stannis was where Davos expected him less and less these days you could probably double that.

Fortune-telling, sending Davos on wild goose chases... _And there's last night, and all the nights before that. You're a fucking symptom._

Stannis' car hadn't been there when he saw Davos out of the back door and locked up, and when he'd opened his closet upstairs Mormont's old Winchester wasn't there either.

Jon looked at the fire for a long time. Then he emptied his glass and set it on the hearth. He went to the telephone behind the bar and called a cab, didn't have to think too hard about where to try first.

 

Stannis stared at the gate, listened to the wind scrape through the leafless branches of the trees. He didn't hear the boy until he opened the car door. Jon froze when he saw the rifle, stood for a moment with one hand on the roof and the other on the door frame. It was cold in the car, and when Stannis flexed his fingers where they cramped around the stock and the barrel a hot ache spread from his knuckles. His eyes burned, dry and tired.

He let the boy take the rifle, then he let his head drop forward and buried his face in his hands.

 

_Stannis had stayed once, lay still in the gathering dawn and watched the boy come around. It was early, the hour still belonging to scrawny foxes and dogs picking through rubbish, far enough from true night that even the Black Castle had long since kicked out its last drunk, or at least thrown blankets over the regulars._

_Jon slept on his front, head pillowed on a forearm, and his habit of pulling up one leg as he slept, bending it at a wide angle, showed he was unused to the company. His knee pushed harder against Stannis' ribs as he shifted, and he must have felt it because his eyelashes fluttered, and he drew in a sudden breath. Stannis was on his side, propped on an elbow, and when he put out his other hand the boy had rolled up to meet him, letting his fingers close on his hip._

_It didn't seem real, that almost-morning, at the time or in memory; every movement languid and dreamlike, every touch setting a fire beneath his skin, slow and consuming. It felt like the ground was falling away beneath them, like it wouldn't come rushing back in the harsh light of day._


End file.
